Nolan Peale

Episode 11

The Good: Well, as far as episode 11 breakups go, this one made sense. It sucks to be the Digital Marketing department, who are soon hitting the unemployment office, but the boss was actually making decisions based on personal desires, and the pressure of working for the company while having a romantic relationship with the boss became too much for Pat.

I do think it accurately portrays how Junior/Senior relationships can unfold in a modern workplace. It's understandable that Jeng would try to have everything go his way, even though it's clear that it won't and can't unless we stray into la la land. The breakup is a result of a character flaw that had been established earlier. Since most Thai BLs tend to introduce new flaws late in the story when they need them, I'll give this a pass. On a scale of 0 to 10, I'd give the breakup a 7.5.

The Meh: All of this should have happened in episode 8. Time and time again, Thai BLs suffer from pacing problems that could easily be avoided. It's evident that this was written by a youngish millennial. It's videogame storytelling at its worst. The "Big Boss" appears early on and then disappears for 11 episodes until the final level. There has been no indication that all these meaningless side quests were preparing the characters to face the main antagonist, so naturally, he defeats them easily. The end. Back to level one. Next time, get better loot.

The Bad: Usually, when I write recaps, I tend to stop at "the Meh" as I'm an optimist. But for crying out loud, who wrote this thing? The first few episodes were fine, but then the story meandered with dinner dates, beach walks, pregnancies, shopping trips, and whatnot, to the point where none of the characters involved in the final showdown were well defined. Jaab is suddenly revealing Jeng's backstory with his father in episode 11... backstory! There's little emotional weight to "saving the Digital Marketing Department" because the main characters seem miserable working there. Pat would be better off in a less stressful job that doesn't make him cry. Moreover, since we've been out of the office for 6 weeks, we no longer care if any of the side characters get to keep their jobs. Do Jeng and Pat actually want to achieve their career goals? Does Pat want to be manager? Does Jeng want to succeed his father as the chairman of the company? Does his father want him to? Did Jeng come back to Digital Marketing to restore his family relationship and that's now at stake? Who knows? All of this is thrown at us in half an hour when it should have been established gradually throughout the series.

IDK. Its an issue because the project turned out to be overbudget once the secret payments were factored in, and if it weren't the son of the president involved, it would be considered fraud. And because Jeng went about it in such a way that was easily discovered by his father, the project was actually a disaster. They would have been better off failing honestly than succeeding dishonestly. I'd be very pissed if I were Pat.

I have to agree though, stating the "Let's break up" 3 times was a little weird. Like maybe Pat had converted to Islam at some point was trying to get out a triple talaq.

Yeah. I get the sense that eps 8-9 were written by a different person. Someone with an ideological point to make. Religious Soul Mate Zealot got ahold of the script and decided to put her thumb on the scale for Patts as much as possible because the idea that Tai might decide not to choose his soulmate is a heresy and that we might actually want him to choose rather than be forced into things by unnamed forces of destiny is a thought put in our minds by the evil Satan himself. We could have a legitimate love triangle, you know. Like where Tai needs to choose between Patts and Lomfon, but that would involve making Patts less than perfect in every way for Tai. For believers in the Cult of the Soul Mate, triangles are blasphemy and we need to go into act IV of this thing with as many options closed off as possible.

Honestly, given how crappy Thai series can be sometimes, it'll probably turn out that she did just die from accidentally eating a raspberry and this whole thing will have been a waste. Everyone will be ruined in the police report laying out what their motives were, though.

Honestly I think what he got was a "so do you like making money, or being broke. You know where to insert that penis if you don't wish to be broke" talk from Miss Suzie and that was enough to change his mind. Same with the little chat with Gun. "Oh, its good to be sorry. You wouldn't be famous if I hadn't covered this up. So which do you prefer?"

Probably my least favorite episode. They just really want to drag out this trip to the mountains as long as possible, don't they? I guess they were worried that we might get excited to see the consequences of that big reveal at the end of episode 8 and lest we get too excited to see what Lomfon's reaction is going to be, we end up with 20 minutes of Nara pathetically apologizing twice! Because if there's one character who we really really needed to see more of, it was Nara. Oh, and any hope that there would be a meaningful conflict after it was revealed that soul mates aren't exclusive, where characters might have to re-evaluate what they believe and understand about themselves, is kind of dashed when they then spent another 20 minutes giving us more soulmate cliches. Like maybe they were worried that we had forgotten that Patts and Tai were soulmates for 5 minutes so they needed to underscore, bold, italicize and put it in all caps that by giving us (in a late episode!) more proof in the form of a "missed connection from years ago." Plus, we didn't even get to see Duer. LOL.

Looks like things will get on track again next week, but I wish they would have just skipped this episode and jumped right into the conflict that's coming.

Either that or Lomfom has been hiding his illness and learned to read lips to get by. Hopefully they'll have some explanation for it. Although its a Thai story, so I'm not going to be surprised if they are just extremely sloppy with continuity and world-building consistency.

I'm not even certain they were 17. Ren was giving off jailbait vibes in that encounter.

The chicken looked tasty.

I liked it, although it probably would have been helpful earlier on to have Pat say something indicating that he didn't have an inkling that Jeng might be gay. I had to pause and reflect on why I found his reaction so weird. If this weren't a BL and we didn't know it was a BL, would we think that Jeng might be interested in men? Probably. Back when Pat was crushing hard on Jeng before he knew he was his boss, he probably should have mentioned to Ae in one of his rants that "its too bad, he's probably straight" or something like that. My guess is that the novel is written in the first person from Pat's perspective and readers would understand better why he was shocked.

My other "Meh" moment is ruining the confession in the bar by immediately following it with that long, drawn out vomit session in the bathroom. Thai BL does that kind of thing all the time, and its annoying. Yeah, it made sense I guess because Pat had eaten 2-3 full meals + boba tea + a lot of wine then mixed up with mixed drinks. I would be on the floor myself at that point. But still, I wish Thai BL would from time to time let us savor the good feels without swinging us immediately into something repulsive.

Anyway, I loved the first "date" in the restaurant. Jeng going into micromanaging mode to demand changes to the restaurant to better set the mood was very much something he would do. I like how the restaurant just happened to have extra flowers laying around when he demanded them. I'd try to pull this off the next time I was on a date with my partner, but it probably wouldn't work for me since the chairs at McDonald's are usually bolted to the floor.

I also had a chuckle when Jaab asked the bartender to make it strong as possible. Like dude, then don't order it on the rocks. And what exactly are you expecting the bartender to do to make straight alcohol stronger than it is? Send it back to the distillery?

Yeah. I the BL that So and Pitch are in looks very dramatic. I'm glad that Pitch didn't write it, since the BL in his dream was pretty cheesy - I mean, Gun doesn't seem like the type of romantic lead who in real life will kiss in the rain. It would mess up his hair. Or ask too much about your feelings. Or call you p. LOL.

He is apparently the type of romantic lead who'll bring you a caramel macchiato for some reason. I'm with So, though. There's enough sugar in macciato to begin with, so no need to add extra.

Anyway, I'm going to just give this another week. There's a lot of tension building, but something needs to give. We know that Mz. Suz. is allergic to nuts, so when is she going to do something that will make someone really need to poison her? What's up with Host? If some roles require Wayu to "grab genitalia just for excitement, but not too stress," does he also have roles that require him to tug them like there's no tomorrow? The questions, the questions....

Given their rowing skills, it would probably take them 12 episodes just to get back to shore to sign their contract.

I don't think Gun does have romantic feelings for Pitch. The issue is that So has feelings for Pitch which Pitch isn't returning, and So is basically acting to eventually get revenge on Gun for other reasons. I think that's the dilemma that So faces. I'm not certain Gun is even aware of how much So hates him for what happened to his brother. That Pitch and Gun are starting to look like they might be a couple is complicating his plans.

I mean, say what you will about the yaoi from 20 years ago with its clearly defined ukes who were always passive and their clearly defined semes who were always in pursuit, and all the ensuing stereotypes about tops and bottoms it promoted, but at least those writers wouldn't have the nerve to cast two ukes in the same story or have have us wait 10 episodes for someone to actually make a move that landed. Yeah, sure. Souta is straight and taller so clearly he's supposed to be the seme, but I'm pretty sure his ramen noodles are laced with extra cod liver oil, because as far as romantic leads go, he's one cold fish.

At the same time, I'm happy to find out that Mahiro once had a boyfriend who we'll be meeting next episode. I was beginning to think that when Souta served him bento 10 years ago, he cut off his libido with the chopsticks. I know this current crop of JBLs has to be tame so ixnay on too much gay sexuality, but until now, they've implied that he moved to Tokyo in his 20s and was so smitten with some dude who once gave him a bento box that he never bothered to even try to move on.

It was so exciting to have Mahiro finally realize that he was making a mistake and deciding to do something about it, but the writers decided to reward him and us with...something that puts us back to where we started and emotionally deflates us even further. Way to go! I mean, it would be such a travesty to have a couple get together before the last episode. Who would want that?

I'm not sure that Jeng knows about Put and Pat's past. I think he thinks that Put is some kind of himbo movie star who seduces fans. I liked the convo, though, because each of these relationships from the outside would look pretty bad if we didn't have information. Jeng using his money and ability to give out work benefits as a lechy boss. Put as an oversexed movie star who uses his fame to seduce the star struck. But they are definitely in a pissing competition over whose intentions are really pure.

O.K. Episode 7 was better than 6, but I'm glad this Fjord gas station subplot is over. Yeah, its put Put back in the picture, but its also forced us to focus too much on Pat without developing his character that much. In fact, he's taken steps backward from where he was when we first met him. Like really, he's less mature now than in episode 1, since they decided to introduce some kind of obsession with stuffed animals that he should have grown out of when he turned 7. He didn't have that obsession then. And he's still crying on the job.

Jeng has always been the more interesting character and the big conflict is going to be back in the office where he needs to 1) save the digital marketing department from being terminated 2) not undo his work creating a more dynamic team by being caught boffing an favored employee 3) impress his father that he's fit to succeed him while 4) getting his father to accept said employee as his boyfriend. Pat just needs to grow into his role and stop getting drunk at work functions, something he seems unable to do. They stalled him out for 3 episodes. He needs to get back to working towards becoming a mature character who we can accept will be a good boyfriend for Jeng.

Meh. Ben is still cuter than 99% of the men in your office and if he'd start working with you, you'd be going out of your way to walk past his cubicle 8 times per day.

Yep. What was the point of the naked dining? Souta doesn't appear to have any problem eating when clothed, so it doesn't create any tension when he eats with Mahiro. Spying Souta naked one day didn't make Mahiro want to chase him because Mahiro was already carrying the torch for him since high school. There haven't been any situations where they started arguing about whether clothing is important to wear when eating. It doesn't appear that the end game here is a final scene where Mahiro has adapted to Souta's habits and they now eat naked together, or Mahiro serves food to a naked Souta like its a normal part of life.

Yeah. I really don't quite get this part where they expect the audience to remain engaged with them as a couple in a romance when neither of them wishes to fight on even the most basic level to be with each other. If neither of them has the courage to cut through what are really minor obstacles like "I saw him hug someone who I know he is friends with so I'm not going to bother asking a question" why should we bother? They are like people auditioning to be formula 1 race car drivers who are too afraid to accelerate the car to the 10KPH needed to get over a speed bump in the parking lot.